The Cats of Hogwarts
by Eucritta
Summary: If they were like real cats, things would be different.


There are rarely fewer than a hundred cats at Hogwarts. The other residents trip over them right and left. There are cats in the window embrasures, cats on the stairs, cats skittering up and down the corridors. Cat toys are everywhere.

The library has an entire section devoted to cats. There's _Mrs Clowder's Magical Moggy Methods_ and Professor Lear's _One Thousand and One Feline Follies_. Catarina Delapoer's _Curious and Cautionary Cat Lore _and Madam Phillips's_ The Pussycat's Pleasaunce._ Gilderoy Lockhart's _Catastrophes with Catlings._ All 1004 volumes of the _Grimorium Grimalkin._

Most of the spells in them do squat.

'Mrs Clowder's Cat-Herding Charm ought to do the trick!' says Hermione Granger. She swishes her wand with a flourish. '_Multimoggy Manire!_'

There's a moment of silence. Green-gold cat eyes blink.

'Right, well. Erm. Excuse me, please ... watch out, coming through ... yes, there's a nice cat ... Oh! Sorry!'

On chilly afternoons cats sneak into the Potions classroom. There've been fires in there since morning. It stinks, but it's warm. The cats tuck themselves under tables and into the folds of robes. They chew on quills and take liberties with bootlaces. Sometimes they steal ingredients.

'Sir ...? A cat just took my cod's gills.'

'Where're my shrews? They were right ... oh, ewww. Never mind.'

'Now for the valerian root ... AH! Give that back!'

Generations of Hogwarts potions masters have tried to keep the cats out. They've winnowed through every reference and experimented with every spell variation. They've even attempted physical means. Wilfred the Wistful moved Potions down to the dungeons in the hopes it'd be more secure. Abernathy Prattsbotham was a martyr to the cause, killed in a series of unmagical mishaps so absurd his successor obliviated the witnesses and erased every account but one for the sake of the dignity of potions masters everywhere.

That record and all others are kept in a spell-locked, endlessly expandable, self-relocating and Disillusioned cabinet off the potions master's office. New Hogwarts potions masters are initiated into the mystery by their predecessors with the gift of the key and the ritual words, 'Good luck, you'll need it.'

Thus, unbeknownst to students and staff, Professor Snape is the one person at Hogwarts who knows every cat-specific spell that really does work. He may even be the one person in the whole of the Wizarding World who knows all of them.

And the very thought of enunciating any of them makes him twitch.

_Kitty-kitty Knitmusi!_ he thinks with intent as he takes aim at the door. Adorable little knit mice explode from the end of his wand and scamper down the corridor. Two-thirds of the cats follow.

Don't knock it. With cats, that's an outstanding success.

A metaphorical candle ignites as he subdues an overly adventuresome kitten with a quick _Kitsie-Witsie Kip_ and nudges her under the lectern to sleep it out. He fishes his girdle-book out of the folds of his overrobe and smiles. The students in the front row glance at one another and edge back.

Oh, yes. If they only knew. Nothing like unspeakably silly charms to teach a class of adolescent bunglers nonverbal spell casting. Like as not they'd stitch their own lips shut rather than speak any of _these._

Then again, by the time he gets a chance to test it out, he's got Lavender Brown in the Sixth. There's always at least one troublemaker.

'Oooo,' she squeals when she spots the assignment on the board. 'I know that one! _Oogum Boogum Pookum_ means I wuv-wuv-wuv you!'

Most of the class goes a delicate shade of green. Even the assembled cats look nonplussed. Professor Snape grits his teeth.

'Five points from Gryffindor, Miss Brown.' He scoops up one of the cats and deposits him four-square on her desk. 'Try again. _Silently._'

Miss Brown's face squinches with concentration. Her lips move, but it's a start.

On the bright side, Harry Potter takes one look at _Pussywussums Fluffyupsies_ and vows that nary a sound shall pass his lips. Possibly ever again. He focuses on his tabby with such fierce determination that the charm takes effect with an audible _poof._

By the bell, the cats are cleaner and fluffier than they've been in living memory. Some of them are so fluffed as to be nearly spherical. So is Miss Granger's hair. Seems that month or so as half-a-cat in the Second had some unfortunate if harmless side-effects, and someone's aim was off. Pity, that.

No-one admits to it. Of course not.


End file.
